


Gwen Doesn't Care

by Atlas_the_Author



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Found Family, Gwen hates the camp, Gwen-centric, Implied David/Gwen, Minor David/Gwen (Camp Camp), SIKE, and everything involved with it, and the campers, but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-07-10 12:42:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19905880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atlas_the_Author/pseuds/Atlas_the_Author
Summary: A series of short chapters detailing how much Gwen definitely in no way shape or form does not care for Camp Campbell or anyone or anything involved with it. Definitely not.





	1. Gwen Doesn't Care about Camp Campbell

**Author's Note:**

> So sometimes I just get random inspiration for fics and a lot of times those inspirations land in writer's block hell. Not this time though. this time I have won! and will continue to win! Enjoy the reading.

Gwen Parker never really had a passion for anything. When she was in high school she spent most of her time in small, unstable friendships that hinged on niche trends and passing fads to support her time away from studies. Those same studies never really stuck in her mind anyway due to her insistence on consuming trash TV and online erotica instead of doing literally anything else. She had priorities to cover back then, get off her back.

The next stage in Gwen's life brought no passion either. Her parents had demanded she go to college, to be the first in the family to do so in years, and move on with her life to be a successful woman. The joke was on them, however, because college life was just more of the same for dear old Gwen. Now that isn’t to say Gwen didn’t try to be a good student because she did try at first. The problem was that nothing really piqued her interest there either. The people were annoying, the teachers were bland, she was bored with all of it. 

So instead of trying to, well, try at college life in any meaningful way she coasted by in her studies, dual majored in Liberal Arts and Psychology (Dear god had that been a mistake, what was she thinking?) and consumed even more garbage erotica. Gwen was in a death spiral and she knew it, but she figured there would be a light at the end of the tunnel, maybe a handsome monster prince too. Well, Gwen got her wish in a way. There was a light at the end of her tunnel but she didn’t realize that the light was coming from the fires of hell. It turned out that hell looked, sounded, and worse, smelled a lot like Summer Camp.

Camp Campbell. When Gwen had seen the ad in the papers she figured she’d give it a shot. Summer job with easy pay and all she had to do was supervise a bunch of kids? She could do that while she was asleep, right?

Wrong. Oh she was so, so wrong. First off was the fact that the “camp” was the definition of running on a shoestring budget. Secondly, Gwen didn’t need to look twice before realizing that it was all some sort of money laundering scheme or tax haven or something that the founder was running here. If it were any more blatant the camp would have had a billboard, with neon lights, that said “Crimes committed here!”. Third, she knew she was getting a co-counselor to work with but she didn’t know he would be so god damn annoying.

Gwen would say that David Price was sent to earth specifically to torment her. Where she was dreary and depressed, he seemed bright and positive at literally all times. Where Gwen was a bit sluggish and put on some pounds, David seemed to lose weight just by waking up and never stood still. He was fully obsessed with the camp and the “beauty of nature” and Gwen did her best to work with the shitty internet and satellite signal that might sometimes, maybe, exist in this woodland hellhole.

Perhaps Gwen did have a passion after all. She certainly held a lot of hate, loathing, and general contempt for Camp Campbell. Maybe that could be her passion. Overwhelming hatred counted “passionate” right? Well… there was a snag in that little passion project of hers.

You see, Gwen definitely hated Camp Campbell… at first. When she first arrived, she knew how terrible of a life choice she had made in joining up with the camp. All of the different “Camps” were shoddily made and held together with tape or Elmer's glue. Role-Playing Camp was just a few cardboard structures covered in tape, Theater camp was a stage that absolutely would never pass a safety inspection by a blind person. Science camp didn’t even have glass beakers! They were wooden! Don’t even get her started on the antics that the campers would get up to.

Gwen would never understand how a group of children could become such a handful so quickly, but she was barely into her first week when shit hit the fan. Ok so technically it was the kid that was obsessed with space that hit the fan, but that was just a metaphor anyway. The shit, not the kid, that one actually happened. The point is that Gwen was overworked, horribly underpaid, and the only reward she seemed to have was that sometimes the nights were quiet enough that she and David were able to just sit down and watch TV together before going to bed. But the nightmares would just start up again the next morning anyway so the reprieve was, unfortunately, short lived.

Now then, most days when the summer first started, Gwen wanted nothing more than to just forget she was at camp and dodge her responsibilities. Sometimes she did that, too. Falling into her old habits of reality TV and monster themed “romance” novels. But as the days went on, Gwen found herself getting more involved in camp activities and having to be involved in the lives of her campers. When Nerris or Nurf needed attention or if Ered or Nikki got into mischief, Gwen found herself on the front lines dealing with them alongside David. Then when The Order of The Sparrow plans fell through or Parents Day turned out to be more of a disaster than she thought, Gwen realized that maybe she was actually starting to care about The Camp, the campers, and even David.

But that was ridiculous, Because Gwen hated them, she hated the camp. Gwen didn’t care about Camp Campbell. She didn’t

...Did she?


	2. Gwen Doesn't Care About David

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David Price was the most annoying, insufferable, idiot Gwen had ever had the displeasure of working with...
> 
> But is that all he was?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, 3 days between chapters is a new record for me. Let's get to it

There were many words that Gwen could use to describe her co-counselor, David. Hyperactive, naive, a moron, annoying, completely insane. These were just some of the nice words she could use on him, too. She had a separate folder full of her non PG complaints about the man she had to work alongside. Gwen swore up and down that David wasn’t actually human. No one could possibly be that happy and nice all the time. But David seemed to be both of those things and more.

David was, by all accounts, a mad man. He woke up bright and early before sunrise every single day and rarely ever slept unless Gwen forced him to do so for her own sanity. When it came to being a counselor David hit every note, maybe a little too well. Gwen did her best to make the bare minimum whenever antics at the camp reached new levels of chaos otherwise she was sure she’d crack. She downed at least one full bottle of anti-anxiety meds a week in this place but David just sauntered around like he owned the place and did what he had to do, even when it would usually require him getting beat up, or mauled, or set on fire, or run over- you know what? He was the punching bag a lot. That’s what you need to take away from that. On top of everything that David did to never lose his shitty fucking smile around camp, he seemed completely and totally enamored with its founder, Cameron Campbell.

Gwen may be stupid as shit but she wasn’t an idiot.

Wait. No, hang on, let her try that one again.

Gwen may not know everything but she knew how to spot such an obvious fugitive. (Yeah, that sounded a lot better) She and David must have had to deal with the runoff from Campbell’s numerous failed schemes or the feds tracking him down at least 10 times a week yet there went David hanging off of every word that old bastard said. He clearly saw Campbell as a father figure, which made Gwen immensely uncomfortable and definitely piqued her curiosity into David’s home life. What could go so horribly wrong in a person’s life to the point that Cameron Campbell looked like a role model?

Whatever it was, it pissed Gwen off. David would hear no arguments against Campbell any time she brought them up. In the first fucking week he had accidentally revealed himself to be hiding out from federal agents in the attic of the mess hall and then took off to international waters in a hail of gunfire! That’s not what a law abiding citizen does, David! She had tried to reason with her co-counselor then and there that night but David was so staunchly pro-Campbell she all but broke into a rage. She figured that David was unsalvageable and was just going to be this unshakable paragon of naivety and gullible positivity until the day he died.

But then that train of thought got a little derailed because Gwen learned that she had pegged the Camp obsessed counselor very wrong.

It occurred just after The Camporee incident where Camp Campbell was nearly lost to The Wood Scouts for fifty dollars (Fifty fucking dollars!). David seemed unlike himself, almost resigned to the fact that no one at the camp listened to him or treated him with any form of respect or authority. Gwen had followed him back to the counselor’s cabin where he explained some idiotic scheme to get the campers excited about camp with some ceremony about a staff or something. Gwen wasn’t actually paying attention but she later realized she should have, because she ended up standing next to David’s very racist depiction of a Native American and gotten herself involved in an equally insensitively themed ploy to make the campers care about camp. You can bet just about how well that went because the answer is it went terribly. Gwen escorted the campers back to their tents with Quartermaster after David’s attempt at lighting the bonfire was foiled by a freak storm. When she had finished, Gwen returned to the clearing just in time to hear something she’d never thought she’d hear.

“You’re right…” David said, disheartened. He was stood facing the bonfire holding the flint and steel weakly in his hand and drenched from the rain. “Times have changed, whether I like it or not. The Campers don’t care. Gwen doesn’t care,”

 _‘Ok, ouch.’_ Gwen thought to herself. Wait, why did she care? She didn’t, David was right she hated this place.

“Even the founder of this place has better things to do.” David continued. So he did know about Campbell not caring about his own camp. David turned back to Max and Gwen shrunk back a bit to avoid being seen. “That’s why I’ll never stop trying. Because somebody _fucking has to_.”

Gwen had never heard David speak like that, let alone swear. It was so alien to her she barely missed when David’s flint and steel snapped and the bonfire collapsed on top of him.

Gwen didn’t know why she had gone through the effort to rebuild the bonfire and resume the ceremony. She didn’t really give a shit about David or the camp or anything but just like Max would justify, she couldn’t deny she was afraid what would happen to David if he really broke. Someone like him usually turned out to be capable of the worst things, if her novels and TV shows were anything to go by (They weren’t, but that’s besides the point). She realized that David wasn’t as naive as he appeared to be, though. He knew the world was fucked up and made the choice not to be a depressed cynic like everyone else. He chose to be a positive influence, even if it was annoying. That was… kind of admirable, actually.

No, no it wasn’t. Gwen didn’t admire David, she hated him, loathed him! He may not be a complete idiot but it didn’t excuse him from being such a spiritually draining dimwit.

Gwen didn’t care about David Price. She didn’t care!

She didn’t...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably wrote and deleted 1000 words trying to form this chapter and end it in one. Maybe some of those ideas will come in the next chapter. Maybe
> 
> Please leave your comments, criticisms, kudos, whatever you want, down below and I will update you all as soon as possible!


	3. Gwen Doesn't Care About Max

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys holy shit I'm alive!
> 
> I know, I know, I went from 3 days between chapters to nearly a month long disappearing act but let me explain. The first weekend of August was Tampa Bay Comic Con so the lead up to that was all focusing on saving money and packing, then the time after it was spent trying to decompress and dealing with post con depression and then life just got in the way. There's been a lot of shit going on that has been keeping me down and i nearly lost my spark for writing this stuff but I will see it through to the end I promise. Let's get to the chapter already!

If you had to ask Gwen what her least favorite part of Camp Campbell was, she might point you to a few things. Subpar indoor plumbing, shoddy TV signal and internet connections, David, but one of the shittiest parts of Camp Campbell were the fucking campers she had to put up with. Beyond that, there was specifically one camper that made things all the worse for wear. It was hard enough dealing with a bunch of weirdo kids with niche interests and talents that seemed to clash in every possible way imaginable but then there was the cream of the crop, Maxwell Arya. Max was the shittiest, most annoying twerp Gwen had ever had the displeasure of working with and Gwen had asked God what she did to deserve his torment.

Only a few weeks into Summer and two more kids arrived for their own camps. Surprisingly, Max latched onto these new kids very quickly. Seeing as how the boy had refused even some of the most basic forms of interaction with the other campers, Max seemed drawn to the new arrivals and they were drawn to him. Their influences easily matched like puzzle pieces and their personalities mixed like the most wonderful combination of paint colors. This very quickly proved to be a new nightmare for Gwen and David as the trio of hell-raisers turned the entire camp even more upside down.

Max was way smarter than his 10 year old form let off. Within days of adopting Neil and Nikki into his sphere of influence, he managed to increase the mayhem at Camp Campbell tenfold. From taking over the camp (only to be ousted by Ered), to nearly getting David arrested on terrorism charges and the threats and blackmail against her, Max was primed to haunt Gwen’s entire life at Camp.

It was a struggle through the summer to deal with Max’s schemes, and while Gwen came to respect the cunning and complexity of some of the kid’s plans, ultimately she considered it a step too far when he would target her directly. Like when She was attempting to search for other job opportunities and he blackmailed her into getting him something he wanted. The little shit didn’t even have a plan and it still worked! Oh well, at least Gwen got her revenge in the moment by revealing his stupid teddy bear to the rest of the camp. They laughed at him for a week. Very cathartic.

There had been a moment, once, where Gwen had been foolish enough to think that Max was actually starting to change. It had been right after the bonfire incident with David when Max had come to her, eyes glistening with tears he was obviously holding back and holding the broken halves of the Order of The Sparrow’s staff. He told Gwen his plan to fix up the staff and light the bonfire when David woke up. “To make sure he wasn’t gonna kill himself or whatever.” Was his excuse, but Gwen didn’t buy it.

Of course those hopes were dashed pretty quick, cause once the camp went back to normal, so did Max and his anarchy. Along with the aforementioned blackmailing, Max had somehow managed to nearly kill Space Kid multiple times, steal a biplane and multiple precious artifacts from a museum and, as Gwen would learn from other campers, cause that idiot blonde from the Flower Scouts, Tabii, to lose an eye! Ok so maybe that last one wasn’t directly his fault but he was still involved with the scheme god dammit so it counted in Gwen’s books.

Maxwell Arya was the shittiest, most annoying twerp Gwen had ever had the displeasure of working with, this was true and likely would be forever but it didn’t take a psychology major (seriously, why did she do that?) to figure out that there was a deeper reason to why Max was the way he was.

Gwen was no idiot, she could see how forced he was towards everyone else and the underlying signals of his body language. Whenever she caught max making a joke about killing himself or any way he could possibly be killed at Camp Gwen could feel the morbid apathy that came with the statement. There was a deeply rooted problem within Max causing his outbursts, and in hindsight Gwen was so upset with herself that it took Parents Day to finally get her to see the truth.

She had retrieved Max’s file just like David asked her to but she nearly dropped it when she read through it. No camp activities, no signatures, not even the medical disclosure paperwork was filled out. It was like his Parents had dropped him off at Camp and left him there.   
  
Wait that’s exactly what happened wasn’t it?

Gwen handed off the papers to David and they both reached the shared realization that Max’s parents really weren’t coming at all and that the kid forcing back tears while huddled in a dark corner of the amphitheater backstage was the true face of the bratty cynic they’d been dealing with. He was really just a sad 10 year old neglected by his own family. Gwen decided that no matter how much bullshit Max put her through, he didn’t deserve that shit, so she convinced David to help her fix things. Thus they ended up at a local pizza joint and dedicated their time to making Max feel acknowledged and cared for.

But no, Gwen still didn’t care about Max. He was a turd, a piece of shit, a bastard little kid that existed only to be her tormenter as if she didn’t have enough of that already!   
  
How was she supposed to care about someone like that?

Why was she supposed to care?   
  
_ Why did she care? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more Chapter left and it'll probably be a big one. It's gonna deal with my favorite moment in the series so far, the season 3 finale, stay tuned!


	4. Gwen Cares God Dammit!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwen has to face the fact that she cares a fucking lot about her life at Camp Campbell, especially when she nearly loses one of the things that makes her life at Camp so worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we reach the end of this short little project. I'm so happy with how this turned out and I'm especially glad that I managed to actually finish it.
> 
> Now I have to warn you that there will be some spoilers for Season 4 episode 12, The Forest, in this chapter and I will also say that I wrote it as a sort of rewrite and wish fulfillment of what I wanted from the ending of it.
> 
> Enjoy!

When Camp Campbell shut down and all the campers were sent off to new camps thanks to Camp Corp, Gwen was given the lucrative offer to work in their HQ in the city. At first it seemed like a dream come true to Gwen. She got a well paying job with benefits, air conditioning and proper plumbing, she moved into a real apartment that she could reliably afford thanks to Camp Corp, everything was going well. The only problems that started showing up were just how meaningless her position was. She wasn’t needed there at all. All her job duties were total redundancies alongside everyone else in her section of the building.

Then about 2 weeks in she got a call that turned out to be from David, Max, and Cameron Campbell of all people. They were getting the camp back together and needed her help to move them around within the system. It took all of about 4 seconds for Gwen to blurt out “Fuck this job!” and get to work on her part in the plan. At the time, she refused to recognize that doing this went directly against all her previous grievances with Camp Campbell and focus on fucking over Camp Corp. Once all was said and done though, Gwen was sitting at her desk in the counselor’s cabin of the newly reopened “Camp Camp” and smiling to herself. In her mind she finally realized and accepted that maybe the camp wasn’t so bad. The campers needed her, David actually respected her (And she may have started to respect him too), she may just be exactly where she was meant to be.

Which is exactly why it hit her especially hard when David disappeared after going to tie down the canoes.

David hadn’t come back, even after hours of waiting, so Gwen finally broke down and left the kids with Quartermaster so that she could investigate. That’s how she found the missing Canoe and promptly freaked the fuck out. By the end of the first week, Gwen was a certified mess What is David was dead? Did he get lost in the woods and get injured so badly that he couldn’t make it back? Why was she the only one that seemed to be so worried? Once week 2 hit Gwen could barely focus on camp activities anymore. She declared a vacation period for the campers to just do whatever they wanted while she isolated herself and her anxiety in the counselors cabin.

The nights brought with them terrors about David lost and alone. He was likely hurt, maybe  _ dead.  _ He could have drowned after falling out of the canoe or fallen from a cliff and hit his head. How many dangerous predator animals lived in these woods and why did Gwen never pay attention during Wilderness Survival Camp!? Oh god, this was too much, Gwen was absolutely going to go insane. She just accepted that she cared about David, and cared about him  _ a lot _ and now she might lose him and-

There was a creaking noise as the door to the counselor’s cabin opened slowly and quietly, a voice called out, “Gwen?”

“Oh my God,  _ David _ !” Gwen shouted as she leapt out of her cot and rushed to David’s side. She flung herself around her lost co-counselor, completely ignoring his makeshift clothing and dirty exterior. Her hands balled into fists in his back and she couldn’t help herself from word vomiting. “Oh god, you’re alive! You’re ok! What are you wearing? Did you break your leg? David holy shit I was so worried you never showed up after we came back and I went to look for you but the canoe was missing and I didn’t know what to do so I left the kids with QM so I could look for you but I didn’t know where to start and I tried to keep things running around here but I just didn’t have the mindset to do everything myself like you could and I couldn’t sleep properly and wasn’t eating and I-” Gwen found herself suddenly at a loss for words as she felt David’s arms wrap around her and hug her so tight she felt she’d never leave even if she wanted to.

“I missed you too.” David said softly and leaned his head into Gwen. His own hands mirrored Gwen’s grip strength as they stood there in the cabin together. Gwen’s entire buildup of anxiety and panic melted and washed away from her in a flood of tears. She cried and kept crying right into David’s chest until she was sure to be dehydrated from it. After what felt like hours of just standing there and crying someone else opened the cabin door.

“Hey Gwen I heard you shouting are you- David!” Max ran over to the two counselors as they took a few awkward steps to separate from each other. “Holy shit you’re alive?”

“Hi Max, I’m glad to see you.” David knelt down on his good leg and ruffled Max’s hair like he did a thousand times before. After swatting away David’s hands Max spoke up again.

“Yeah yeah, whatever. I just lost a bet to Neil so this has turned out to be a terrible night. Also I guess our vacation’s over now. Why didn’t you just get eaten by a bear or something so I could get some extra candy out of this mess?” Max huffed. Gwen wiped a tear and smiled at the two’s exchange. David, someone Gwen never thought she’d grow so close to in a million years and Max, the lost child shielded in cynicism. They were both here, with her, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Gwen had two important people in her life that cared about her even if it wasn’t always obvious.

Gwen had a camp that, while not always comfortable, would always be her home no matter what.

Gwen had a home and a family and she cared about it all.

She cared about it so goddamn much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanna take a moment more of your time to thank every single person that left kudos and comments on this story. your continued support and readership helped make this whole thing possible. Without that kind of interaction I usually don't finish writing these stories so it really is because of you guys.
> 
> Thank you so much, leave your finale comments down below, and Campe Diem!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for your time. Please leave any kudos, comments, or criticisms you have on your way out and I hope you stick around for what comes next!


End file.
